Shooting Chant (2 page)

Taylor studied the
body. “Who is he?” Taylor asked, reaching for his gloves. “This is an expensive little car he messed up.”

“The victim has been identified as Kyle Hansen, an employee here,” she said, her tone crisp and businesslike. It was easier to cope with the harsh realities of her job when she distanced herself from them. Remaining analytical and professional was the only way to survive. “From what I can
determine the victim took two gunshots to the head. The first one was apparently a near miss; it just grazed his skull, and was not fatal. The easy explanation is that he probably flinched at the wrong time, or was shaking quite a bit and almost blew the job. It’s not unheard of for the victim to screw up the first shot. He obviously made up for it with the second shot, which entered right though
his ear canal.”

“That’s what made all the mess inside the car.” Taylor shook his head. “But that first shot puzzles me. A round that close to his face…”

“I know. You’d think that it would have knocked him out cold, or at least stunned him for a while. Forget flinching. But I’m not the ME. It’s up to her to make that determination. I wonder if she can tell how much time went by between shots?”

“Somebody must have seen or heard something. What do you say we go inside as soon as we can and ask the folks a few questions?”

“Good idea. We’ll work as a team,” she said, watching Taylor’s reaction to her assumption.

“Deal.” Taylor nodded, and she relaxed, glad there would be no jurisdictional issues here.

As soon as the other officers arrived, Ella went with Taylor to the small guardhouse
beside the only gate, but no guard was there, and the gate was open. They were halfway to the main door of the building when Landreth suddenly stepped out onto the sidewalk and blocked their way. “We’re in the middle of a sterilization procedure. I can’t let either of you go inside without an escort.”

“We have to talk to your employees as well as to you. We need to know more about the man who
died,” Ella said. “We’ll also want to take a look at his work station, and his employee file.”

Landreth opened the main door and led the way to a small office. “We can talk here.”

It only took a few questions to establish that Hansen was used to going out alone during his afternoon break. He was the only smoker on the shift, and no smoking was allowed inside the building. Hansen couldn’t leave
his work station without being relieved, so the routine was well established.

“So your first indication that something was wrong was when you heard the shots?” Ella asked. She felt sorry for him, he was clearly disturbed by what had happened, but she had a job to do.

“No one heard the shots, not from in here, I don’t think. These walls are thick and it’s impossible to hear anything that goes
on outside.”

“What about the guard?” Taylor asked.

“He’d locked the gate and come inside for a can of soda, which doesn’t violate procedures by the way. When Hansen didn’t come in at the end of his break time, I found out the guard was still inside. I sent him back out to let Hansen in. I figured he was stuck outside.”

“What else can you tell us about the victim?” Ella asked.

“He was a genius
at his work, but he was messed up personally. His wife divorced him about a year ago and he never got over it. I hate to say this, but I’m not at all surprised that he committed suicide. He was unstable, and everyone who knew him will verify that.”

“Was his job on the line?” Taylor asked.

“He wasn’t going to be fired. He would have been too difficult to replace, but he certainly pushed it enough
times. We had another big argument just a few days ago and, as usual, he was insubordinate.”

“What was the latest argument about?” Ella asked.

“He wanted to redesign the software operating the sterilizing machinery. He was always trying to tweak the programs to get a little more out of the assembly line.”

“We’ll need to see his employee file,” Ella said.

Landreth’s expression grew stony. “I
don’t have the authority to show it to you. There’s a matter of confidentiality to consider. Our employees could sue us—unless you’ve got a warrant, that is.”

“We could get one fairly quickly,” Ella bluffed. “Things move at a different pace on the Rez where everyone knows everyone else. Of course if I have to go to all that trouble, I’ll have to make my time count. I’m sure I’ll want to go through
the entire facility—no matter what it does to your sterilization procedures. And I’d want to look at all the employee records, not just Kyle Hansen’s.”

“A search warrant doesn’t give you unlimited access,” Landreth protested.

“True. The Fourth Amendment requires us to specify both the place to be searched and the items we’re searching for, but ‘items’ can mean any papers, books, and records
that may help establish the identity of a killer, and the ‘place’ can be this entire facility.”

“Killer? I thought you said it was suicide.”

“You said it was suicide, I didn’t,” Ella said.

“What makes you think it’s murder?”

“I won’t know for sure until the ME’s report is in, but the evidence is not as open and shut as you think. If you insist on standing in our way, there’s also a little
matter of obstruction of justice you might want to think about.”

“Look, let’s not get all worked up. I’ll get you Kyle Hansen’s file, if you’ll just sign for it.”

“No problem.”

As he left the room, Taylor looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “You learn all that bad cop stuff in the FBI?”

Ella smiled. “That guy just annoys me,” she replied. “I dislike anyone who tries to tell me how to do my
job.”

Landreth returned a few minutes later. “Off the record, Hansen was slowly going over the edge. His personal problems kept interfering with business. I would have fired him a long time ago if he hadn’t been so important to our production line.”

Ella glanced at the employee file Landreth had handed her. “It says here that he was always arguing with his supervisor.”

“That’s true. I am—was—his
supervisor. I hired him to program the machines that sterilize our products. That’s precise, methodical work and he was an excellent systems designer. But he had mood swings that really interfered with his performance. One call from his ex-wife or her lawyer, and he’d go into a depression that would last for days. Then he’d just sit there like a stone and no one would be able to communicate
with him.”

“We’ll have to talk to his coworkers. Also, we’ll need to question Jimmie Herder since he found the body,” Ella said.

“I can’t help you with that at the moment. Jimmie took off shortly after he notified us. We’ve had to call in another one of our security people to man the gate. I’ve tried calling Jimmie’s home several times already just to make sure he’s okay, but no one’s there.”

Ella knew Jimmie. He was a traditionalist and so was his wife. Ghost sickness was a real fear among many of the
Dineh,
The People, but it was particularly so with the traditionalists. It was said that the
chindi,
the evil in a man, remained earthbound after his death and could contaminate the living. Jimmie would have wanted to have an evil-chasing chant done for him and would not have hung around.
In all fairness, even a progressive wouldn’t have tempted fate by hanging around a corpse unless it was absolutely necessary.

“What about that list of his coworkers?” Ella pressed.

“No, you’ve gotten all you’re going to get from me for now. If your coroner finds that it’s murder, then come back and we’ll see. But until then, I’m finished.” Landreth gave her a hard look. “I’d be risking a lawsuit
by giving you anything more and I’m just not willing to do that.”

“Okay. Just don’t be surprised to see us out in the parking lot tomorrow, stopping people as they come in. I hope that doesn’t make them late for work,” Ella said with a shrug.

By the time Ella and Taylor left the building, the crime scene team was working the parking lot area, and the medical examiner had arrived.

Taylor’s handheld
radio at his belt crackled and his call sign came over the air. He spoke quickly, then turned back to Ella. “I’m going to have to return to my office. Let me know what else you find out?”

“You’ve got it.”

As he drove off, Ella met with Dr. Carolyn Roanhorse, the tribe’s ME, and one of the few medical examiners in New Mexico not assigned to the Office of the Medical Investigators in Albuquerque.
Carolyn was a large woman by any standards, but few had the nerve to point it out to her.

Seeing Ella, Carolyn held up one hand and finished speaking into her tape recorder. After switching it off, she looked up. “You want me to tell you if this is suicide, but I won’t be able to give you any definitive answers yet.”

“But you’ve got a gut feeling, right?” Ella pressed.

She nodded. “I could
be wrong, but I’d recommend you continue to investigate the possibility of a homicide on this one.”

“That was my feeling, too,” Ella said. Carolyn’s guesses were seldom off the mark, and it was good to have her corroborate her own observations.

Two hours later, after her team had processed the area and the body and the car had been taken away, Ella went to talk to Justine.

“We need to find
Jimmie Herder. He’s the security guard who found the body.”

“Tonight?”

“Or first thing tomorrow. I figure he’s probably out trying to hire a Singer. I’ll stop by my brother’s house tonight and see if Herder’s contacted him.”

“I’ll check with his family,” Justine said. “If I find him, I’ll let you know right away.”

Ella made sure that Landreth knew her team would be back in the morning for
one last look around and that a cop would remain to guard the scene until then. Once that was done, she got back into her vehicle and sped down the highway.

She’d agreed to meet her old friend Wilson Joe tonight and speak to the kids in the outreach program, but she was hopelessly late. Wilson was a full-time professor at the college, but he still managed to find time to work with the younger
kids on the Rez after hours. It was his way of getting them involved in something other than trouble—the kind of trouble that recently had led to the appearance of gangs on the Navajo Nation.

Right now, the kids were learning about animals and plant life on the Rez. Wilson had asked her to come and tell the kids a little about the Plant Watchers since Ella and her mother were members of that
society.

As she drove to the meeting, the monotony of the landscape helped her relax. Ella’s mind drifted back easily to the crime scene. That Anglo’s death still puzzled her. Instinct told her that there was a lot more to it than what appeared on the surface. The evidence presented a picture filled with too many little inconsistencies. The victim supposedly had shot himself with his left hand,
yet the nicotine stains on his fingers suggested he was right-handed. The location and time of the shooting also bothered her. Why would he pick an afternoon break to do the job, and the parking lot at work?

The Navajo Way said that everything had a pattern and only by seeing and understanding that pattern could one find harmony. Inconsistencies marred the order of things and revealed the pattern
of evil, and recognizing that pattern was the first step toward reversing it. She wasn’t a traditionalist, but some things just made sense.

Five minutes later, Ella parked her vehicle and walked inside the elementary school where Wilson’s group met. About ten children were in a room partially used for storage, showing off their pets and some of the plants they’d grown as part of a special project.

Ella smiled at Wilson talking to Alice Washburn, Gloria’s eleven-year-old daughter, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I’ve named my rabbit Winnie,” Alice said. “She was a gift, though Mom wasn’t too happy about her. Winnie just had babies, but only one is still alive. He’s really a cool little rabbit already.”

As the other children started asking Alice if they could have the baby rabbit when it was
old enough, Wilson took Ella aside.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t make it.”

“I got held up. It couldn’t be helped. But I’m glad you’re all still here.”

“We may have a small group, but they couldn’t be better kids. They’re interested in just about everything.”

“They look like a great bunch.”

“I’m really lucky to be teaching them, to be honest. They’ve helped me more than you can imagine.
It’s been really tough for me these past few months.”

Ella knew he was referring to the death of his fiancée and all the discoveries that had come in the aftermath of that incident. He’d gone through his own version of Hell, facing betrayal, heartache, and almost the loss of his own life.

“What do you think, Professor Wilson?” one of the girls asked.

Wilson glanced down at the pair by his elbow.
“I’m sorry, girls. What were you saying?”

“So many people are angry over the show that the Agricultural Society held,” Marcie, a little girl of about eight, said. “A lot of the winners were people who had used special Anglo feeds for their animals instead of having them eat what our animals always have eaten—what the land gives us freely.”

“It’s still fair,” Alice argued. “That feed is available
to everyone.”

“But the animals were even bred in funny ways,” Marcie said. “Artificially, or something.”

Alice crossed her arms. “So what?” She looked up at Ella. “You have traditionalists in your family, Investigator Clah, but you also went to school off the reservation. Do you believe that if we do stuff like that the gods will be angry?”

“The Plant People will think they’re not needed and
move away,” Marcie said.

“What are Plant People?” Alice asked. “I never understand stuff like that!”

“Because your family’s forgotten what it’s like to be Navajo,” Marcie said.

Ella knew that their were echoing their parents and the old arguments between the traditionalists and the progressives. “Our tribe calls all plants the Plant People because, like people, they can be our friends, or not,”
Ella answered. “Some plants are good, but others have to be guarded against. That’s a fact that stays the same whether you’re a progressive or a traditionalist.”